Carbon offsetting schemes may actually increase pollution and harm local communities, studies have shown, as UN environmental experts called for the rich to stop buying credits ‘in exchange for a clean conscience.’
As early as 2017 the European Commission warned that if carbon schemes were not radically altered, they could release an extra 3.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by 2020.
A study by the Commission found that 85 per cent of offsetting projects were unlikely to deliver ‘real’ or ‘measurable’ benefits, yet airlines continue to suggest that their increasing emissions can be negated by such schemes.
Niklas Hagelberg, a Senior Programme Officer at UN Environment also recently warned that offsetting was not a ‘get-out-of-jail free card’ to be used by ‘polluters as a free pass for inaction.’
Read more at: Daily Telegraph
